Winter Schnee, Substitute Teacher
by QuiteQuiet
Summary: After spending time in the Atlas military, Winter has a hard time adjusting to the more traditional classroom behaviors inside Beacon Academy. ["Key and Peele" parody]
1. Roll Call

_**Author's Note: So I saw the famous**_ **Key and Peele** _ **skit and not long after that, a screencap parody where Oobleck verbally lashes the heck outta Team RWBY during attendance. Many months later, I turned up with my own, two-parter version.**_

 _ ** _ **This scene always played out like a skit in my head, so it was interesting translating that to a story.**_ It was deliciously fun thinking about how to comically make Winter channel a sergeant unused to life outside the Atlas military. Imagine nobody knows about Cinder's big plan yet, and that for some handwaved reason RWBY forgets about Neo.**_

 _ **Also, I think in a direct parody, the White Fang lieutenant would be Mr. Garvey.**_

* * *

The students settled into their seats, an outdated desk-by-desk lineup where the prongs in the chairs connected to the tables. It was study skills, where the classroom surroundings reflected no focus on any particular subject. This in turn reflected perfectly the students' lack of effort. Shunted into the archaic parts of the school for a napping period or plain bad scheduling, the people inside these walls usually ceased paying attention to academic success. The only thing that kept their focus over the comic book reading, chitchat, and the touchpad clacks of texted word was the stark giant whiteboard standing against the chalkboard-green walls.

That was the only thing that kept their focus on a normal day. This day, the ring of the bronze hallway bell was met with the strides of a woman in white moving swiftly into the room. She reached the table in front of the whiteboard and, before setting her hands on it, spoke.

"At attention, circus clowns," she said, her voice broadcasting clearly across the air. "I'm your substitute teacher, Sergeant Schnee. I spent the last five years overseas in the Atlas military. So don't even think about messing with me."

As she'd continued to speak, the sounds in the room had begun to quiet down. She kept her gaze traveling, an unblinking pan settling across the room. This is where she wanted them.

"All clear?"

The students were now facing the board. There were nods and a few hums of affirmation.

Winter swiped the clipboard off the table. "Let's take attendance."

She started reading the roster. In the second row of desks, Cinder Fall leaned to the student sitting next to her.

"Isn't that the heiress's sister?"

Winter's eyes stopped scanning the clipboard halfway through the sentence. She looked up, staring Cinder dead in the face.

"So that's how you start the war," Winter said, dropping the clipboard and letting it rattle on the table. "Speaking without permission to test basic insubordination."

There was a very tense silence. The rest of the class turned to Cinder as Winter left the table to walk down the floor. At the desk, her heels clicked to a stop, Specialist uniform in full display, and she sized down Cinder sitting in her seat.

"I recognize you from the files they sent after calling me in," Winter said, as Cinder's tiny smile curved into a U among the other students' sudden fear. "Transfer student, absent from seven classes in the past five weeks, and playing it cool through the recycled guise of pulling C-pluses across the board. You try vainly, for pretending to be an average student even outside the confines of your domicile does not conceal your intent to disrupt academia by encouraging classroom anarchy." Some of the student's mouths were open. Winter wasn't done.

"You're in the open, subordinate," Winter said. "Consider yourself singled out and under suspicion." She let it settle in. Everyone's eyes were on her as she raised her arm to point at Cinder.

"I got my eye on you, Private Fail."

Cinder said nothing, the rise of her eyebrows the one hint she'd processed the words. Winter returned to the table and called out another name.

"Corporal Addle." There was a prolonged silence. "Is Corporal Addle present?" Winter lowered the clipboard, looked around for confirmation. "Team leader Addle is not here today?"

In the next moment, it clicked. A sophomore raised her hand from the middle of the room.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I'm Corporal Coco _Adel_ ," the sophomore said.

"Ad—" Winter looked down at the clipboard, then lifted it across her chest, turning her head to the wall for a moment before swinging her gaze onto Coco.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?"

The tone was hushed, parceling the silence before the punishment came in. "Coco _Adeeeeel_ ," Winter repeated, drawing up the latter name to exit nasally. "What?" Coco shrugged, her eyes flicking around the room. She lowered her shades to make eye contact as Winter's number on her commenced.

"Corporal Addle, supersonic princess with a million-dollar car," said Winter. "Weapon: firearm; a Gatling gun sealed inside the very compact briefcase that resides under your desk." At these words a few students bent hesitantly, to check out what Winter was talking about.

"I've heard you're proficient at wielding this weapon, Addle," Winter said, her voice rising to a limited, but horrifyingly civil indoors tone. She waited another second. "But I spent _the last five years_ deployed in the Atlas military." The civility broke. "Nothing is stopping me from _jump-kicking that briefcase from under you and smacking you on the head with it before I throw both of you out the goddamn window._ "

Coco decided not to tell her she'd hurt herself if she so much as slapped that briefcase.

Winter lowered the clipboard's contents back into view. "Private Bayadoña," she said, immediately looking up.

"Here," said Blake.

"Thank you," said Winter, and Blake sighed with relief. "Now." Winter put her finger on the next name as Blake lowered her arm. "Team leader, Private Rosé."

The private's three teammates stole glances at her from the front row. Winter tried again. "Where is Rosé today?" She spread her arms out, challenging the class for an answer. "Is Rosé in the room right now? Or." She closed her arms in to hold the clipboard in both hands. "Is. Our prodigal 15-year-old team leader. Out. On frivolous AWOL?"

Right across where Winter was standing, the accented mispronunciation finally sank in. Ruby raised her hand and looked Winter in the face.

"Do you mean Private Ruby Rose?"

"SON OF A GODDAMN DUST MINE DETONATED IN THE DESERT!" Winter yelled, snapping the clipboard with one strike to the table. The class was horrified, but Ruby only looked on with childlike betrayal.

" _You have got an issue, Private Rosé_!" said Winter as Ruby continued to stare at her with an innocent lack of comprehension. The sergeant strode to her in three steps, the edge of her coat gliding with each thump of her heels. "Now you get your underwhelming ass to the linoleum and do eight sets of sit-ups for your reckless untrained insubordination!"

"Sit-ups?" protested the student next to Ruby. "But she can barely sit down!"

"Shut up, Weiss!" Winter said.

Ruby, recognizing it would not be good to let Winter continue to blow her top, got off her seat and rustled her papers getting everything into her binder. The rest of the class watched her as she moved to a back corner in the classroom and started performing her assignment.

"One…two…three…four…"

Winter's body was brimming with barely lidded rage, but as she acknowledged Ruby's cooperation, she slowly stood up straight. "It's clear the insolation and tomfoolery of this classroom makes attendance a chore," she said, letting the anger subside for a bit and flicking the wrist that held the one sheet of paper dangling from half a clipboard. "All the seats are filled, so I'm going to guess unless there's an infiltrator cutting another class, everyone's here." She went to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. "Intel states this is a slack class, but my job today is to teach you how to study with skill."

She uncapped the marker and began writing as Ruby's voice continued to sound in the corner. While Winter's back was turned, Cinder raised her middle finger into view from behind her desk.

In the other back corner of the room, another exchange student finished folding a paper airplane and flicked her eyes up with a smirk on her face. She creased down the wings another time for extra certainty, and then started her aim once before letting the airplane go, her feet still propped up on her desk. The plane had been crafted out of personal triple-colored stationery and was now gliding with perfect trajectory to the front of the room. But before the plane reached Weiss, Yang Xiao Long caught sight of it passing over her head and intercepted it, pinning the base in her fingers quietly so as not to distract Winter. Blake was sitting next to Yang, and leaned in. Yang unfolded the airplane, and after reading what was written inside, she and Blake looked slowly over their shoulders to the sender.

"What is that?"

Winter had turned away from the whiteboard. Blake and Yang jolted, and as their substitute teacher walked toward them, Yang crumpled up the airplane and crammed it into her mouth.

"I don't have time for games, Miss Exshiao Long," Winter said as Yang tried to smile with a mouth full of paper.

Blake, being the only student safe to gamble chances, grabbed the front of her desk. "She was asking your sister for your number," she said, hoping her potential ass-kicking would be mitigated by the truth.

Winter stopped, hands behind her back, and looked genuinely perplexed at the statement. "What does my service number have to do with anything?" she asked Yang, as Weiss hunched over with her fingers on her temple three seats away.

"Uh, General Schnee?" a guy said in the back of the room, leaning out of his seat and pointing as the rest of the class dared not speak. "I think Neo wanted your phone number, for like a date or something."

" _A date_? SON OF A _BIIIIIIIIIIITCH_!" Winter screamed, flipping the table down the front of the room. Neo swept her feet off the desk as Winter approached, being the only student short enough to do so without toppling the desk. Neo's smile lifted along with her eyes as Winter spoke in the wake of the crashing front table.

"Are you making a mockery out of the Atlas military?" Trademarked for her selective mutism, Neo said nothing, merely shocked and awed by Winter's dedication to getting angry.

Winter's arm flew in front of Neo to point at her pixielike face. "You are going straight for as capital a punishment as this ridiculous academy allows itself to give. Get up, tricolored freak, and come with me to Ouncepine's office right now so we can tell him exactly what you did!"

Neo's smile faded, and there was the tiniest crease of a frown as she sat back to look Winter fully in the face. Lips slightly parted, Neo raised a hand and, still watching her superior, pointed at herself, and then Winter. Her eyes strayed to the wall, and then shifted to the door along with her finger. She refocused back to Winter, the edges of her upper teeth now showing as she turned out both hands into the cups of a shrug.

"Get your pint-sized ass out of your station before I drag you down the campus myself! Insubordinate, and libertine," Winter announced to the class, referring to the legal complications of a student leading on a teacher.

Neo was out of her seat, hands up to deflect further conflict. She headed toward the door and Winter followed, pushing Neo's binder straighter under her arm before she caught up to stand by her side. They reached the door and Winter spun around. "Bayadoña, oversee operations until I get back," she said to a petrified Blake. Blake saluted to placate, and in the seat next to her Yang painfully swallowed the paper airplane, partly out of fear reflex.

Winter nodded to Blake, gave the class another long, glaring pan, and then she left to be alone with Neo in the hallway. The students watched the door close, and in the middle of the transition they heard Ruby's voice float in from the corner: "34…35…36…"

The door clicked shut, and the footsteps faded. Some people looked at Weiss, who had hidden her head under her binder. Everyone turned back to face the whiteboard.

Not too far away from Cinder, Emerald looked around the room. She shrugged.

"I'd want her number too."


	2. The After-School Club

**_Author's Note: Winter's study skills class tries to explain extracurricular activities, but she is sure they're pulling a fast one based on her lack of experience with mainstream education._**

 ** _The second half of my_ Key and Peele _parody. Writing the dialogue was even more fun this time. I did think about making Yang the spokesperson instead of Ruby, and having Blake be the one to describe clubs. In that case, Winter would treat her as a traitor. But I felt that would have distracted too much from the sergeant's general fury and paranoia._**

 ** _Also, her name for Neo was going to be "Private Pint-Size"._**

* * *

In the most forgotten parts of Beacon Academy, the bronze hallway bell rang. Substitute Sergeant Winter Schnee began to take attendance.

"Private Fail."

"Here," said Cinder.

"You are present," Winter said, ticking the box next to Cinder's name. "Corporal Addle."

"Yo," said Coco.

"Thank you. Bayadoña."

"Right here," said Blake.

"Uh-huh. Corporal Scarlatyna," Winter said after a pause, checking Ruby's box while skipping her name on purpose.

In the back corner of the room, there was a tiny rattle as an exchange student left her seat. The entire class held its breath before Winter lowered the clipboard.

"Private Tricolor, what are you doing out of your chair?"

It was clear she was exasperated, but meting out her tone. She waited for an answer.

Neo took a short breath through her mouth, sucked in the smile on her lips. She raised her arms and gestured vaguely to the door.

"I have no idea what that means, Private," said Winter. "Only that roaming from your station is a level-one disruptive offense."

Up front, Ruby hunched over her desk, a smile plastered below her unfixed gaze to the floor. She uncrossed her arms and raised a hand.

"Sergeant Schnee?"

Winter sighed and tapped the back of the clipboard. "What is it, Private Rosé?"

"Some of us need to leave class after attendance today."

"Oh?" said Winter, rounding her mouth into an expression of mocking curiosity. "Is that so."

"Mmhm."

Winter put down the clipboard. She meandered her way to Ruby, never taking her eyes off the singled-out private as she spoke with the voice of a patronizing babysitter. "And what, pray tell. Is the reason. For this unauthenticated brothel break?"

Ruby sucked in air, trying to ignore the implication from her partner's older sister. "Yearbook photos," she said, flicking her eyes up to look at Winter. Winter turned her head from her post leaning over Ruby's desk, awaiting elaboration. "Some of us need to leave so we can get yearbook photos before dispersing into our clubs."

Winter laughed through her nose. "Okay, that's adorable." She shook her head, taking her hands off Ruby's desk to return to the table by the whiteboard. "You know, that might have worked with other substitute teachers, but I spent _over five years_ in the _Atlas military_." She looked up, hands linked firmly behind her back.

"You glorified civilians want to leave this class early so you can mingle with your club." Her smile disappeared into a hard line. She panned the room once around.

"Ain't none a' y'all at legal age to enter the damn _club_!"

She went back to the table, picking up the clipboard. "Chicanerous."

Neo remained standing, rocking back on her feet and taking her hands off her hips in an undirected shrug. Ruby stared at the floor again. She raised her hand.

"Sergeant Schnee."

"GOD, SON OF A BITCH!" Winter yelled, snapping her second clipboard in two days. She let it fall to the floor, turning right to Ruby and giving her a long glare.

"Do you want to survive with me in this bunker?"

"Even though you didn't even want bunk beds? Yes," said Ruby, in choked fear and sincerity.

Winter pointed at Ruby, then at the window. "I am going to cover you in sheep's blood and send you out to look for the lions."

In the middle of the room, Coco raised her hand. " _What_ , Corporal Addle," Winter said.

"Sergeant, we have clubs at this school," Coco said plainly. "On Thursdays, we go to student clubs after our afternoon class."

"Okay. Y'all wanna play," Winter said, kicking her heels and pumping her arm across the air. "You all want to play games and abandon your post." She twitched her wrists in a jazzy motion, making Weiss cringe and put her head in her hands. Winter stopped messin' and stood back at attention. "Fine," she said. "I'll pander to your games. I'm honored to partake in them. Anyone here who attends an after-school club, stand your dishonorable ass up."

She leaned against the table to track the metal chair legs scraping across the floor. "There we have it. The Peanut Platoon and their gallery of heckling," she said as Ruby, Weiss, Coco, and Cinder joined Neo in getting out of their seats. "All that's left is to retrieve the busty blond brute and you'll have the whole squad prepared for combat."

"Ah, God," Yang muttered, but Winter was already continuing.

"You're standing, Private Rosé," she told Ruby. "What, may I ask, _club_ are you in?"

Ruby slid her feet together and straightened up. "Future Leaders of Remnant," she said, not without pride.

Winter laughed, in her promising pander rather than pure malice. "Okay. Okay," she said, steeling up to look Ruby once more in the eye. "Do you really believe you will remain a leader in the future?" She shook her head halfway, drew out a flat look.

"Does deferment mean nothing to you?" she demanded. "Can you transcend through time with poor marks from the day Brain-when gave you a scythe, Rosé?"

"Well, if I transcended for a history of poor marks—"

" _Fix your attitude and sit your ass down_!" Winter yelled.

Ruby took her seat.

Winter had to rub her forehead before moving on to the next one. "Addle, I don't know why I expend my time on this." She smiled, waved her hand to address Coco. "Corporal Addle. Which club gained your membership?"

"We're in the drama club," Coco said, gesturing to Cinder.

Winter made a noise of disbelief and smacked the table. "You don't need any more drama in your life"—she stated this firmly before rising into a one-note singsong—"after you washed out of the Cookie Scouts and made your way into Beacon in order to become slackers and anarchic unmotivators." Her smile bored straight past Coco's shades. "You and Fail are not dismissed."

Coco spread her arms out, tried to play. "Come on, I need the practice time. I'm the lead role."

"Yeah, I bet you are!" Winter said. Coco turned her hands up and took her seat. Cinder sat too, and continued sewing the curtain lining she'd rigged to catch on fire.

The sergeant moved to her next victim. "How about you, Weiss?"

Weiss uncrossed her arms and put them in the air. "I'm in the chess club."

Winter bounced her head back, then stared at her sister for a long time. "Weiss," she said, "when you get home for spring break, I am going to booby-trap your luggage and slam you in a headlock before I throw you down the half-mile stairs." She pointed at Weiss, closer to the pendant of her necklace than her open mouth.

"You are not in the Chest Club."

She retracted her arm, still appalled. Weiss sighed as Winter watched her sit down.

Winter turned to the corner. She spread her arms, as if welcoming an old friend. "Our ace in the foxhole," she said, as Neo waved with one finger at a time. "Private Tricolor. The _crazy_ little ice cream lady. So," said Winter. "What _cluuuuuuuub_ are you in?"

Neo opened her mouth, paused, and averted her eyes. She rolled her wrists, searching for an explanation, before she gave up and started making movements with her hands.

"This isn't a time for phony codes, Private Tricolor," Winter warned as Neo's smile lifted to show teeth. "State your after-school club," Winter said, "or for this classroom hold your anarchist beast."

Yang couldn't take it. "She's in the sign language club," she said.

" _The sign language club_?" Winter shrieked. "SON OF A FUUUUUUUUUUUCKING _BITCH_!" she roared, her final words being drowned out by the crashes of her flipping the front table. She'd kicked the clipboard too, sending its halves darting low across the floor to smack off the walls. "Like the government would authorize a club dedicated to reading signs!" she said going over to Neo, who looked genuinely scared but also hid a surge of infatuation behind her shocked and cornered smile.

Winter pointed to the door to get Neo's eye contact. "Get your sorry ice cream ass to Ouncepine's office for double capital punishment since the last time we went over he was out on _coffee-making business_. And you gallery of mess hall janitors are coming too," she said, spinning to the rest of the class and panning her hand toward the other four who'd been standing. "You're all going for defying authority in mutinous conspiracy." Her shoulders were heaving. There was a brief silence as everyone stared up at her in fear.

"Sergeant Schnee?" Coco said, the legitimate concern in her face showing from under the shades she'd tilted away from her eyes. "Sign language is a real thing."

"And next you'll tell me Future Leaders of Remnant is a real thing, too!"

"But it is!" Ruby blurted. "And if you were overseas in the Atlas military then wouldn't you be exposed to sign language?"

"GOOD GODDAMN, YOU ARE A TOOL!" Winter yelled, and Ruby stumbled out of her one-piece desk to do pushups in the corner.

"One…two…three…four…"

The steady rhythm of her voice let the class know where they stood. Everyone faced forward with their heads down until the last trio of accused parties got up to form at the door. "Bayadoña, maintain the unit until I get back," Winter said after she joined them, making Blake dart her eyes under the sudden attention. She didn't let go of her desk until Winter started filing the students out of the room.

Halfway through the door, Coco looked over shoulder. "The show starts next week."

"GET OUT!" Winter yelled, making Coco disappear into the hall. The others followed, Neo trailing last to make a quick scan of Winter up and down from the corner of her eyes. The door closed, the footsteps faded, and Ruby's murmurs filled the room.

In the middle of the silence, Emerald looked around to no one in particular.

"I would have told her I needed to clean my weapon."


End file.
